*Part 14* *When We Met*

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Heyyyyyy it’s your girl, back from the dead and avoiding her word count. No, but for real, I’m slightly embarrassed about how little of NaNoWriMo I did. BUT I had two weeks of performances and another week where I was out of town with no computer so… I have a good bundle of half-baked excuses to feed you. I will do a post on Nano in a bit when I have the time (So probably never, let’s be honest lol.) Anyway, part 14 of this lovely story that I know you all missed terribly. 

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Since you all probably forgot what happened or just love this story so much you need to read it again, you can find links to the post here

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“Okay. Okay, okay,” I tried to organize my thoughts, but it was hard when she was right there. And I thought she was gone forever. Gosh, I couldn’t focus, “Okay, okay, so, to get you out we’ll have to… No wait, we can’t do that. That got closed off. So then that must mean we have to-“

“Who said anything about me leaving?” She blinked, I looked at her. The dog was rubbing up against her. She was scratching their ears and they looked so happy. So content. They had never looked like that with me. Never so peaceful. I licked my lip and bit the inside of my cheek.

“You don’t want to leave?” I asked, cautious, my hopes soaring, my heartbeat slowed.

“I… Don’t think so,” She murmured, looking around. She looked a lot like the dog… dogs, whatever. Happy. Peaceful. Content. “I mean, what’s not to like?”

“You don’t want to leave…” I had let myself smile a little, then make it go away. I couldn’t smile. Couldn’t even entertain that idea. It wasn’t possible. It would end badly. “You have to leave.”

“Why?” She scoffed, “There’s nothing for me up there. Bu down here… Here I have you and… and this, whatever this is.” She said, gesturing around her. The dark rolling hills of nothingness and the red sky.

“I’m nothing. This is nothing.” I heard my voice crack. With panic. With franticness, “Your mom, oh gosh, your mom. She’s gonna be so worried… I-“

“Will you just shut up?” She sighed, “It’s no big deal, we just send a message up to her, to let her know I’m alright. Then I can chill out here for a while.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not for just like a month or two,” I ran a hand through my hair, tugging at the ends, “It’s forever. Like forever, forever.”

“You make it seem like such a bad thing,” She shrugged, “Let’s go tell my mom.”

“Wait.” I grabbed her arm as she started to turn away. “Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.”

“What?” She looked at her arm. My bare hands on her bare shoulder. I stared at it for a second too. I’ve dreamed of this. Of touching her. Just skin to skin. Just to be able to feel her warmth. But there is no warmth. There’s just a lingering heat of life. A dying ember of her entirety.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” I said quickly, removing my hand. Her absence of her warmth jump-started my heart. My mind. “We have to move fast to get this to work.”

“What to work?” She asked, cocking her head at me.

“I remember something about pomegranates,” I said grabbing her hand and pulling her with me as I started to run.

“Slow down!” She groaned, “And what about pomegranates?”

“I don’t remember, we have to find out, before it’s too late,” I said, dragging her with me. My heart was roaring in my ears because as I gripped her hand. I could already feel it getting lighter. I could already feel it disappearing. She wasn’t completely gone yet. There was still a little bit of earth left in her. A little bit of life. And if I could just figure out how to keep that inside her. Maybe I could save her.

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